Page 32 of Kane's Kingdom

He's carrying a cut made of old leather, worn soft at the shoulders and cracked along the edges. I know it's my father's before he turns it around. For a second, I can't breathe.

KINGDOM COME curves across the back again. The bottom rocker is there too, reading MC. His rank patch has been sewn back into place, the old stitching matched so carefully I can barely see where King's men tore it away. RED, his road name patch, has been replaced too.

I look at Kane.

"Red Rourke gave thirty years to this club," he says. "It ended wrong."

His gaze moves around the room. "It ends right today."

Nobody argues or even shifts.

Kane holds the cut out in front of him. "Red Rourke dies a brother of Kingdom Come."

The room answers as one with a toast of beer cans raised.

"Brother."

The word hits me harder than the fire did.

Griz looks at the cut with his jaw clenched. His face is rough with grief, maybe regret. Maybe both. He rode beside my father before either of them had gray in their beards.

When he looks at me, he dips his chin. It isn't an apology. It's something older than that.

I cover my mouth, but the sound still gets out.

Kane crosses the room and places the cut in my hands. The leather is heavier than I remember.

My father wore it until it shaped itself around his shoulders. I can see every crease his body left behind, every faded patch where sunlight touched it on the road.

Kane doesn't tell me not to cry or try to turn the moment into something easier. He simply holds me close while the club gives my father's name back.

I findKane in his office later. My father's cut is folded carefully over my arm. I should take it home, but I'm not ready to put it away yet. Not after spending so many years looking at the bare leather where the patches used to be.

Kane looks up from his desk when I step inside.

"You don't need to thank me," he says.

"I haven't said anything."

"You were going to though."

I close the door behind me. "You went to my house."

"I did."

"For this."

My fingers tighten around the worn leather. I don't have to ask how he knew where I kept it. He's known me my whole life and understood without being told that nobody else had the right to touch what was left of Red Rourke. He went himself.

"You found the patches," I say.

"They were in a drawer in my father's office."

"And you had them sewn back on."

His gaze settles on the leather in my hands. "They should never have been taken off."

My throat tightens. "Kane--"